The three most important factors that influence voting choices are similar among men and women: candidates who are not corrupt, services that candidates provide to their area, and candidate’s platform (Figure 13).

The top three factors influencing voting choices for women are the same across broad age groups but the order is different. Younger women place more emphasis on the candidate’s platform than older women.

In urban areas, women prioritize the factor that candidates are not corrupt while in rural areas women prioritize the candidate’s ability to provide services to their areas.

While the most important factors for voting do not differ much between men and women, there are important differences between women along sectarian lines. For Christian women, the top three factors cited as most important are candidates who are not corrupt, candidate’s platform and the services that candidates provide to their area. Women of all other sectarian groups prioritize “services that candidates provide to their area” as the leading consideration when making their voting choice. Druze women place more emphasis than others on services that candidates provide to their area. Druze and Shia Muslim women mention the leader’s charisma as an important consideration while other sectarian groups do not mention it. Christian, Sunni and Shia women mention the candidate’s platform in the top three voting considerations while Druze women put less emphasis on this attribute.

Lebanese women were asked to rank their top policy concerns, i.e. the issues that they believe elected officials should prioritize while in office.

Highest on their list is the economy, followed by job creation and then fighting corruption (Figure 14). The top three policy priorities for men and women are the same but the order is different. Women stress more the importance of improving the economy in general and are slightly more likely to cite developmental concerns than men. Men’s first policy priority is fighting corruption. Creating jobs is important for both sexes.

Improving the status of women in the country is very low on women’s and men’s priority list: only 13% mention it, falling in the tenth place. It is in the same position for men, but even fewer men mention it (only 8%).

When looking at top policy concerns by age groups (Figure 15), we find that women who are 55 or older have a different set of priorities than women in younger age groups: Those 18-34 and 35-54 consider improving the economy in general as their top priority whereas the 55+ consider improving access to healthcare as their top priority. The 18-34 and the 35-54 mention creating jobs and fighting corruption among their top three policy concerns. This is less important for the 55+ who only mention it in the fourth place.